FARMERS will be tasked with plugging the gaps in the state’s new meteorological network as Local Land Services moves away from on-ground monitoring.
The state’s farmers will be encouraged to download a free app to collect and send photos, rainfall information, ground cover and soil moisture stats to ground-truth conditions for the Department of Primary Industry’s new Enhanced Drought Information System.
DPI says it’s part of a suite of new weather tools being rolled out over the next six months to iron out inconsistencies in the monitoring system, launched earlier this year.
DPI climatologist Dr Anthony Clark said the ‘prototype’ info hub was still being tweaked to allow farmers to access more comprehensive data.
He said the first step was enlisting farmers to tell DPI what conditions are like on the ground in areas not comprehensively covered by the satellite mapping. He confirmed the system was not linked to any drought assistance measures.
One of the more difficult things with the new system is that LLS doesn’t put into drought monitoring anymore – so we’re missing critical pieces of information
- DPI climatologist Anthony Clark
“One of the more difficult things with the new system is that LLS doesn’t put into drought monitoring anymore – so we’re missing critical pieces of information,” Dr Clark said.
“And there are holes in the meteorological network unfortunately. So in the next month or so we’ll be putting something out that will enable farmers to report what is going on.
“The idea is to snap a photo, send in self-assessments of groundcover, biomass, crop status. It will all be held in a central database to verify broad-level data”.
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The app will reportedly operate on low-bandwidth with data able to be stored until a farmer heads into an area with reception.
Rural Assistance Authority director John Newcombe acknowledged connectivity issues would hinder reporting in some regions.
NSW Farmers backed the move, saying it was important that farmers were included in gathering and validating weather information.
“The main challenge for DPI is the large land mass and the large number of weather stations needed to cover each parish,” said Rural Affairs Committee Chair Sonia O’Keefe.
“The most important action would be to ensure that the (system) continues to have the capacity to provide the most accurate information and that more farmers are able to contribute by ground truthing this information.”